Google Map sleuthing in Hawaii

Today, I called with a friend who lives in Hawaii. He showed me a view of his city from the top of his tall apartment building, and pointed out different points of interest. One area was Waikiki, which I recognized as the same place I stayed one night in 2015, when my connecting flight to Japan got postponed. That was the only time I’ve been in Hawaii, and it was an unplanned night. The airline company gave me a free voucher to stay at a nice beach resort there.

After the call with my friend, I pinpointed the building he was standing on in Google Maps 3D View. I couldn’t remember the exact name of the resort I stayed at. Looking in my photo archive, I found a picture of a sculpture outside the resort. I then found the same sculpture in Google Street View. Then I set directions from my friend’s location to the resort. Turned out it was less than 1 mile away! Who knew that me and this friend, who I met in an online course last year, have probably been within a 1-mile physical distance of each other at one point in our lives?

We’re hoping to actually meet in person this year.